Post by whatagain on Jan 11, 2017 21:16:40 GMT

I would consider this a private matter if it were true. Which could very well be the case. I dined with Mexicans today and they don't like him. Surprise... Yet they didn't know trump said Bruxelles is a hellhole and we follow Shariah rules.I wonder how many friends he will make as a president.I certainly hope my taxes will not be spent to welcome him in Belgium.

Post by mich64 on Jan 11, 2017 21:35:20 GMT

At the press conference today he seemed to try to address that claim by reminding everyone that he is a germaphobe.

While he wants to make that fact clear to everyone (although his comments on the Access Hollywood tapes seem to indicate he does not mind grabbing things), I think the bigger concern is the alleged contact between his Campaign and the Russians.

Post by fumobici on Jan 12, 2017 6:01:52 GMT

I would bet against the rumors about Trump being true. The English former spook who is the source was apparently trying to sell them to both Democrats and Trump's Republican opponents all the last year and nobody was biting. I think this will end up under the "fake news" heading, but CIA fake news rather than Russian. The press, once again, has no shame at all.

Post by bixaorellana on Jan 12, 2017 6:18:43 GMT

To add to my post above, I wanted to say I agree with Mich that it's not the sexual stuff that's important, if any of the "classified" stuff turns out to to be true. But good one, Mich, on "grabbing things.

This above is Greg Greenwald's take on it. The dossier in question appears to have been floating around for some time, but as it contained no corroborating evidence it found no publishers. Credulous Democrats and almost unanimously pro-Hillary deep staters ,(somewhat understandably) in a panic state, however, are so desperate for anything to use as opposition research that they are willing to use or to lend credence to this creepy smear piece as a desperation measure. This is entirely likely to backfire. and work to Trump's advantage, however.

Post by fumobici on Jan 12, 2017 12:46:53 GMT

I, being probably well to the left of most in not all of the members here, am probably as well as such the furthest here from Trump's actual political ideology. But I also acknowledge that this isn't the puerile Manichean 'white hats vs. black hats' narrative that partisan Democrats embrace either. This is a group of extreme right-wing nativists vs. a group of center-right war mongering neocons and security state torturers and authoritarians. Those on either side of this battle are morally unfit and deplorable, to borrow Hillary's descriptor. There are, sadly, no 'good guys', this is evil vs. evil. I wish it were otherwise, but we missed that possibility when Hillary and the DNC elbowed Bernie out.

Post by casimira on Jan 12, 2017 13:30:08 GMT

Well stated Fumobici.

Both sides have played being victims of the other. Hillary almost pathetically portraying herself as a martyr. And the main stream media feeding the frenzy and milking it for any and everything they can.

I'm so, so , so sick of it all.

It's all egos and serves no one least of all the American people they purport to care about.

Post by casimira on Jan 12, 2017 13:50:14 GMT

From what I've read, Trump allegedly paid Russian prostitutes to piddle all over the bed where Obama and his wife slept, in some sort of bizarre "revenge" fantasy.

Don't the hotel rooms in Russia have cameras at least in the hallways that would have filmed said prostitutes entering the room?I think it's silly, preposterous rumors such as this that only serves to make the Democrats appear desperate and pathetic, and undignified.

Post by kerouac2 on Jan 12, 2017 15:20:03 GMT

I, being probably well to the left of most in not all of the members here

I voted for the Communist Revolutionary League (now renamed the New Anti-Capitalist Party) or the Workers Combat Party in French presidential elections from 1981 to 2002 and still vote for that party in legislative elections for the first round. We hit the high point in 2002 when the Communist Revolutionary League won an amazing 4.25% of the vote (my choice that year) and the Workers Combat Party (too old fashioned for me by then) won 5.72% of the vote. And those were not the only far left parties. If one accepts to count the French communist party as being part of the 'far left,' these factions combined actually totalled 13.81% of the first round vote in that election.

And that is the year that the Socialist Party (Lionel Jospin) was eliminated in the first round with 16.18%, even though he was considered to be the shoo in for the presidential election in the second round. We ended up with a choice between Jacques Chirac (19.88%) and Jean-Marie Le Pen of the National Front (16.86%). In the second round, Chirac was re-elected with 82.21% of the vote (and yes, I voted for him in desperation). Can you imagine what it feels like to end up with a president that only 19.88% of the voters wanted in the first round?

I learned my lesson and no longer use the first round of the election to satisfy my opinionated urges. I am not a fan of the Socialist wimps, but now I vote for them immediately if I feel that there is any danger from any other party. (In my own district, the Socialist candidate wins with about 70% of the vote in the second round, so I can still give my authentic opinion during the first round in legislative or local elections.)

The upcoming presidential election presents a new problem. The National Front is now the biggest party in France, even though the combination of the other parties united should be enough to keep it out of power, just like in Austria. But it is not a sure thing anymore. I am not at all against Socialist president Hollande, but he has been extremely unpopular because he has absolutely no charisma and world events have played against him during the entire term. People need somebody to blame, so they have blamed him, even though in all of the polls, nobody claims that any other person could have done better. He has to bear the blame for everything that went wrong -- terrorist attacks, unemployment, radical Islam, the weather, traffic tickets, taxes, global warming -- you name it, the government is responsible. Hollande is not running for re-election, but in any case, whoever the Socialist candidate turns out to be (primaries this month), he is in 4th place so has no chance of being even qualified for the second round.

So I no longer vote in conformity with my views. Sorry Fumobici. Now I feel the need to try to get somebody elected with whom I disagree on many points but who can help to fight the evil that is menacing France. At the moment I am supporting the wild card, the former finance minister of the socialist administration but who has never been a party member. In fact, he has never run for office anywhere. But he is a fresh face with new ideas, and such people are few and far between. A lot of the left hates him because he has weird ideas like authorising people to work on Sunday or thinking that perhaps young people can work longer hours than people approaching retirement. I really do understand the opposing views, but since these other ideas have never been tried (in France), I am willing to give it a chance. After all, when mistakes are made, they can be cancelled if necessary. At the moment, Emmanuel Macron is 3rd or 4th in the polls, but he is rising during each new poll as an independent candidate with no party affiliation. He is neither Ross Perot nor George Wallace, so I am really hoping that something good might happen.

The first round of the election is not until April, so all sorts of things can still happen before then.

Post by bixaorellana on Jan 12, 2017 17:25:52 GMT

Fumobici, this is the second time recently that's you've waved your supposedly better leftist credentials in everyones faces. Personally, I'd prefer to give my opinion without first defensively listing proof of correct thinking and let anyone reading it draw his or her own conclusion. That said, I appreciate Kerouac's thoughtful reply and, along with many people in the world, wind up having to use my vote for the better alternative, whether or not that would be my true choice. That's a long-winded way of saying that, as a Sanders supporter, once he'd been thrown under the bus the only sane option was to use our votes to keep Trump out.

Both of the essays you shared make valid points, although Greenwald's dislike of the Democrats is so rabid that he almost manages to white-wash Trump. At this stage, it's become moot whether the documents should have been published or not. The sad fact is that we have a completely unsuitable president-elect who in a sane world would have been disqualified from even running. Members of his own party, the party that fostered the climate in which this creature could be elected, are the original commissioners of this investigation by a private spy. They apparently spent time doing that instead of figuring out a way to keep him from being the Republican nominee.

But yeah, quite honestly, since it's all so ethically murky right now anyway, if there is a way to use some of those charges to prevent Trump from ascending to the presidency that would be all to the good. Maybe at least it would wake up some of his supporters to how their ignorance and fears let them elevate a dangerous buffoon into office. (yeah, right)

Post by lizzyfaire on Jan 12, 2017 17:39:26 GMT

Me, I think the golden shower rumour is very funny. I don't think it's sexual in nature, but beyond puerile and that's why it's being latched onto by social media. That being said, I doubt the actual Russian videos will ever see the light of day, but they've done their damage, because the imagination is stronger than the truth. However, I'm really looking forward to the Taiwanese animated "news" story.

Post by lagatta on Jan 12, 2017 17:51:39 GMT

I'm very fortunate in having been able to vote for parties that at least somewhat correspond to my views on the Federal, Québec and local (municipal and arrondissement council) levels, and they all won locally. though not Federally, Québec-wide or city-wide. But there was zero risk of the Conservative Harper types winning where I live on any level. Harper's candidate came a distant fourth where I live, and Trudeau's candidate came third. The NDP (social-democrats) won - and I really like my MP Alexandre Boulerice - and the Bloc québécois came second.

Yes, Hollande was very unlucky, as he isn't a bad sort. I don't like Manuel Valls very well though.

Post by fumobici on Jan 12, 2017 21:23:55 GMT

Fumobici, this is the second time recently that's you've waved your supposedly better leftist credentials in everyones faces. Personally, I'd prefer to give my opinion without first defensively listing proof of correct thinking and let anyone reading it draw his or her own conclusion.

Unfortunately I have to defensively preface any opinions I make public with such language as I know that any criticism of the Democrats I make will be immediately used as a bludgeon against me to suggest that I am somehow a secret Trump supporter or unwitting enabler. That's the partisan trap that enables the duopoly to force people into supporting evil, you are veal penned into a space where you have to fit into some childish Bushian "you are either with us or you are against us" false dichotomy and that is then used to silence or discredit even the most valid criticism. "The other guys are worse!" Yes, they are and so what? That isn't a justification for anything, and I refuse to be penned into that trap. The Democratic Party as exemplified by Clinton and the DNC are a horrible, sneeringly corrupt, right-wing corporatist, war mongering, torturer shielding, civil liberties hating, authoritarian, corporate controlled nightmare under the control of billionaires and bloody-minded neocons. That isn't changed one iota by who is on the other side of the aisle or by ridiculous opponents like Trump. I will not support or even tolerate the many policies of the Democratic Party I have vehement disagreement with, nor will I support those promoting those policies out of fear or threats.

That said, I appreciate Kerouac's thoughtful reply and, along with many people in the world, wind up having to use my vote for the better alternative, whether or not that would be my true choice. That's a long-winded way of saying that, as a Sanders supporter, once he'd been thrown under the bus the only sane option was to use our votes to keep Trump out.

It's not like I voted for Trump. No, I didn't vote for Hillary either, but there *must* eventually be a limit to how far one can betray one's own principles to cast a vote or you, in fact, really believe in nothing at all. And the DNC Republican-Lite Democrats are well past my personal limit. Sanders would have landslided Trump head to head, I blame the Party that did every underhanded thing they could to prevent that happening and, yes, I blame every Democrat who voted for Hillary in the primary for us facing the nightmare of Trump as President-elect. Those are your real Trump enablers right there.

Both of the essays you shared make valid points, although Greenwald's dislike of the Democrats is so rabid that he almost manages to white-wash Trump. At this stage, it's become moot whether the documents should have been published or not. The sad fact is that we have a completely unsuitable president-elect who in a sane world would have been disqualified from even running. Members of his own party, the party that fostered the climate in which this creature could be elected, are the original commissioners of this investigation by a private spy. They apparently spent time doing that instead of figuring out a way to keep him from being the Republican nominee.

Greenwald isn't being "rabid", he is being unflinchingly truthful in his usual blunt way, which is of course extremely painful and distressing for those inside the partisan bubble to hear. Trump won the Republican nomination because people despised the status quo alternatives he faced. Once Trump entered the race, there was no way of the RP preventing him winning the nomination with a Jeb Bush or a Ted Cruz, or even a John Kasich. The Republican Party pooh-bahs despised Trump almost as viscerally as we do, he was a direct threat to their power, their authority. If that smear dossier contained any truth at all, they would have used it to prevent Trump from getting the nomination.

But yeah, quite honestly, since it's all so ethically murky right now anyway, if there is a way to use some of those charges to prevent Trump from ascending to the presidency that would be all to the good. Maybe at least it would wake up some of his supporters to how their ignorance and fears let them elevate a dangerous buffoon into office. (yeah, right)

Watching the Intelligence Community fire blank after blank into the Trump candidacy--even after he was lawfully and democratically elected to the office--is pathetic and dispiriting for me to watch. First we had the baseless insinuations that the vote totals had been hacked by Russian state agents (assertions that a shocking 50% of credulous Clinton supporters believed lacking any evidence), then we had the pathetic attempt to marshal faithless electors to change their pledged votes, then we had the publication of the “Joint Analysis Report” which essentially came out and accused Trump of treason (a capital offense) based on alleged secret evidence from unnamed sources, then lastly we have the leaking of this ridiculous and lurid set of sexual allegations--all of which were done to subvert the democratic process and to delegitimize, if not overturn, its result. Again, I probably despise Trump as much as anyone here--and probably have even greater policy disagreement as well--but c'mon. This ongoing process to overturn the election is disgusting and contemptuous of the very foundations our nation was built upon.

Post by lagatta on Jan 12, 2017 21:30:12 GMT

Fumobici, I got the same kind of venom on a feminist forum, just for saying that I probably wouldn't have voted for Clinton - most likely for Jill Stein, who is also a woman... and I was careful to say that I'm not a citizen of that country and don't really know what I would have done.

I really don't know whether the accusations are baseless or not, and Trump is so sleazy that anything is possible, but I'm just waiting for more credible information one way or another as I don't trust any of them.

Post by kerouac2 on Jan 12, 2017 22:48:19 GMT

I don't believe that any of my major additional political wishes will happen in my lifetime, but I am aware that progress has been made, for example, marriage for everyone and also various other laws concerning equality of the sexes -- in France 50% of the political candidacies must now be accorded to each sex. Naturally, it is sort of shame that such laws are necessary.

Obviously, controversy about any person's sexual preferences should not occur, but the fact is that all public people are under permanent scrutiny, even though it isn't fair. They know this, and we know this, so they should not be surprised if the subject comes up.

Post by onlyMark on Jan 13, 2017 5:12:56 GMT

Unfortunately I have to defensively preface any opinions I make public with such language as I know that any criticism of the Democrats I make will be immediately used as a bludgeon against me to suggest that I am somehow a secret Trump supporter or unwitting enabler. That's the partisan trap that enables the duopoly to force people into supporting evil, you are veal penned into a space where you have to fit into some childish Bushian "you are either with us or you are against us" false dichotomy and that is then used to silence or discredit even the most valid criticism.

I understood most of it including the veal bit.I'm quite proud of myself.

Post by fumobici on Jan 13, 2017 18:56:24 GMT

I don't believe that any of my major additional political wishes will happen in my lifetime, but I am aware that progress has been made, for example, marriage for everyone and also various other laws concerning equality of the sexes -- in France 50% of the political candidacies must now be accorded to each sex. Naturally, it is sort of shame that such laws are necessary.

Obviously, controversy about any person's sexual preferences should not occur, but the fact is that all public people are under permanent scrutiny, even though it isn't fair. They know this, and we know this, so they should not be surprised if the subject comes up.

I'm curious what those wishes might be.

Political change seems to often happen in seemingly unpredictable fits and starts. Like earthquakes, stresses slowly build and nothing much happens on the surface. Until. If anyone had said five years ago that gay marriage would be Constitutionally protected in all 50 US states and that almost 25% of Americans would live in states where it is completely legal for adults to possess, use--and even to grow--cannabis for any reason, they'd have been written off as utterly delusional. And yet here we are. Now, neither of these changes involve redistributing wealth, in any of a thousand different ways, from the richest to the neediest in the US to achieve a greater measure of social and political justice, so they never met the full weight of resistance of the impacted status quo, but when the consensus within the electorate first breaks through, change could come all in a rush. In other words, when the political conditions exist (and plotting trendlines in polling data suggests inevitabilities here) for single-payer Medicare For All to be unstoppable, even with the full weight of massive corruption from a multi-trillion dollar industry opposing it, it will happen at some point. And once that gets done, we'll look around and it'll dawn on us that some of those things we wanted but we were repeatedly told were politically "impossible", all that stuff the reactionaries condescendingly dismiss as pipe dreams or unicorns, were now completely possible. Medicare For All/single-payer polls well even among Republicans, it is almost universally popular with Democratic voters, but oddly (or not) not at all among Democratic elected officials and appointees. The total voter approval rate consistently exceeds seventy percent in the polling data. If the next Democratic (or Republican!) presidential nominees embraces Medicare For All and their opponent doesn't, they will win in a landslide; if one party flips, the other must too or the political cost to them will be too high to bear. Then we can discuss taxing capital gains as income, reversing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, remove the SS tax cap, instituting a financial transaction tax, and on and on and on. One party, by turning against its big donors and going populist, can then rule the richest and most powerful nation on Earth. One party inevitably will succumb, and that party will rule as long as the other party remains anti-populist.

Post by bixaorellana on Jan 14, 2017 3:37:42 GMT

The reason I haven't responded earlier is because I've been busy. Also, you make it difficult to respond plainly and to the point, Fumobici, because of all the snidely baseless accusations embedded in your highly emotional and, to my mind, rather poorly reasoned response in #166.

Fact: The US currently has only two political parties from which any candidate has a hope of being elected.

I do believe Bernie Sanders would very likely have carried the day and I do believe he was cheated out of the nomination by his party. The Democrats somehow never realized the gamble they were taking by pushing through Clinton as the candidate. They lost and now the whole country is going to be punished for it. The now emboldened Republican swill are already dismantling the teensy strides that were made towards more health care and whatever bits of civil liberties finally ceded to but LGBTQs and to women.

But you somehow manage to wrap yourself in the flag of "the very foundations our nation was built upon", while at the same time having refused to use the one single tool you had to try to stop the wave of regression that is already washing over that nation.

Post by fumobici on Jan 14, 2017 16:39:07 GMT

What "baseless accusations" specifically? I'll be more than happy to support anything in my posts with links and citations to reputable sources that can be fact checked where specific assertions of fact have been made. I can't refute blanket characterizations like "highly emotional and, to my mind, rather poorly reasoned response" though, lacking any useful specificity about what you object to in them. If you have any arguments that factually contradict my posts, don't be afraid to post them up. I'm thick skinned and, in fact, very much appreciate being corrected when I've made factual errors. I consider being corrected a great service and welcome it, it makes me a better informed person. But it also requires actual facts to do.

As for my not voting for Hillary, as I'm confident you are aware, the state I live in is among the bluest of blue states and as such my individual vote for President did not and could not have any effect whatever on the outcome of the election.

Post by bixaorellana on Jan 14, 2017 17:55:24 GMT

Okay, your paragraph one in #166:

You can criticize the Democrats all you want as far as I'm concerned. As a Democrat-by-default, I'm fully aware that I'm poorly served by my party and will not use your distaste for them to bludgeon you. I do think you're an enabler, albeit not unwittingly.Yes, the Democrats are vile in many of the ways you name, but in the framework (prison, if you wish) of our present system, there are more Democrat congressman and senators promoting and voting to serve the needs of the populace, admittedly in a watered-down, inadequate fashion.

Paragraph two:As stated previously, Sanders was the true and correct nominee, but once the party enthroned Clinton, the only way to prevent Trump from becoming president was to vote for Clinton. Sorry, I cannot be budged from that belief.

Paragrah three:The first sentence contains what I consider a baseless accusation. The fact that I take exception to Greenwald's essay (it can't really be called an article as in news article) does not automatically put me inside the partisan bubble. I object to it because I don't accept his reasoning and would not accept some of his claims without factual backup. I don't know that I agree that Trump won the nomination so much because people despised the alternatives. I think his adherents liked his sloganeering (and racism and xenophobia and homophobia, etc.) and willingness to be The Leader. It was far more fun for them than actually listening to what any other candidate had to say. Re: the dossier & whether or not it could have been used by the Republicans to disqualify Trump -- this is where Greenwald's Deep State claims start to make more sense, which is not to say I am yet willing to accept them. It now appears obvious that Comey used his position to inject enough doubt into Clinton's already shaky voter base for her to lose the election. The dossier's charge of Trump conspiring with the Kremlin, even as rumor, might have been enough to make him lose the election, were it aired before November. The FBI was happy to groundlessly reopen the Clinton email question, yet sat on the dossier. (For that matter, wasn't the dossier automatically a matter for the CIA?)

Paragraph four:We don't know that the charges are all true or false. As for firing blanks, the publication of the document has muddied the waters, since the public can't know how much has been investigated. Most of anything being fired seems to be from the media at this point. Should there be a do-over of the entire election. Yeah, maybe so.

Reply #170: This is where you & I may never see eye to eye, Fumobici. Whereas I agree wholeheartedly with the goals you cite, I remain mystified as to why you don't think that four years of status-quo would not be better than four years of aggressively retrograde "leadership".

Post by chexbres on Jan 14, 2017 19:03:24 GMT

Nothing matters. Trump is disregarding everything, including the strong advice that he divest himself of his business holdings. Piling up a bunch of worthless dossiers is just shtick - means nothing.The world will probably end with a big bang, courtesy of Kim Jong Un disguised as Dr Strangelove.It's all over, folks.

Post by kerouac2 on Jan 15, 2017 6:14:30 GMT

I don't believe that any of my major additional political wishes will happen in my lifetime, but I am aware that progress has been made, for example, marriage for everyone and also various other laws concerning equality of the sexes -- in France 50% of the political candidacies must now be accorded to each sex. Naturally, it is sort of shame that such laws are necessary.

Obviously, controversy about any person's sexual preferences should not occur, but the fact is that all public people are under permanent scrutiny, even though it isn't fair. They know this, and we know this, so they should not be surprised if the subject comes up.

I'm curious what those wishes might be.

Well, one idea that I have always supported is the fusion of France and Germany, an idea that was originally put forward by Konrad Adenauer in March 1950 with a common parliament and nationality. Charles de Gaulle was one of the only French politicians in favour of the idea at the time, but he was not in power then. While we ended up with the Treaty of Rome in 1957 which laid the foundation for the European Union, nationalism had already taken over by then which is why progress has been so slow. The leaders just emerging from WW2 were much more daring but by 1957 all of the reasons that made this a good idea were already being forgotten or ignored.

You will probably find it odd, since it is never in the international news, that this idea of fusion has not gone away in the two countries and there was a new surge of interest after the Brexit vote. The two countries already consider themselves to be each other's strongest ally, and there are quite a few other elements of convergence:

13 French regions and 16 German LänderA unified geographic entity that has been interconnected for a long timeBonn, which would be the federal capital, equidistant from Paris and Berlin and which still possesses all of the governmental infrastructure from before German reunificationA common currencyCompletely convergent economic interests in the 4th and 6th world economiesCompletely convergent foreign policyIdentical ecological concernsSame standard of livingEquivalent health and social servicesCenturies old cooperation in culture, the arts, universities, science and more recently in the military field

A lot of the new generation of Europe has totally abandoned nationalism and completely embrances other cultures. But no, I don't think this fusion will occur in my lifetime. The existence of the European Union is both a consolation and a handicap, because most people will say that a total fusion is no longer necessary. I disagree.

I would also like to see the "floodgates" of immigration opened. It seems obvious to me that there is so much pressure on immigration mostly because the borders are not permeable. Up until the 1970's, just about anybody could settle in France and nobody considered it to be a problem. A lot of people would later return to their home countries and others would become French. It worked just fine until the same psychosis set in just about everywhere in the world: "Immigrants are lazy, they suck up all of the social services and they increase the crime rate." No matter how many times this is disproven, people still don't believe the results of studies.

So no, I don't think that things will go back to what I consider "normal" in my lifetime.

So those are two of my "impossible" wishes, fumobici. But they have nothing to do with the United States of President Trump.

Post by fumobici on Jan 15, 2017 14:28:28 GMT

You can criticize the Democrats all you want as far as I'm concerned. As a Democrat-by-default, I'm fully aware that I'm poorly served by my party and will not use your distaste for them to bludgeon you. I do think you're an enabler, albeit not unwittingly.Yes, the Democrats are vile in many of the ways you name, but in the framework (prison, if you wish) of our present system, there are more Democrat congressman and senators promoting and voting to serve the needs of the populace, admittedly in a watered-down, inadequate fashion.

So rather than being an unwitting Trump-enabler (which I would fervently deny), you think my actual intent is to enable Trump? Nice. And inexplicable to me since my own views are in almost perfect diametric opposition to his extreme right wing nuttery. Are Democrats as a group better than the Republicans as a group in terms of policy? Obviously yes, lesser evil is their branding and their pitch. But. My contempt for Democrats stems from the fact of their explicit corruption. Republican politicians by and large don't need to be bribed to make and promote regressive and reactionary policy. They are proudly pro-war pro-oligarch, pro-bigotry, pro-polluter, pro-victim blaming, pro-kicking down on the poor, the disadvantaged, the disabled, minorities, the powerless and so on. They do not betray their base when they act on these politics, they honor their base, they do their base's bidding. Republicans are frankly and unapologetically evil, and embrace their evil, they flaunt it, they are proud of it like the guy driving a jacked-up truck with the big Confederate flag flapping behind. The Democrats play a much more cynical game. Instead of serving their base, the Democrats despise and work against the interests their own base. The reasons Wall St., Big Pharma, Insurance companies, telecom monopolies, polluting energy behemoths, military contractors and all the rest of the vile, parasitic corporate sector pour hundreds of millions of dollars into the Democratic Party is obviously specifically to betray the interests and wishes of the rank and file members. The Republicans would do it for free. And the bigs in the Democratic Party lap it up, revel in betraying their base and getting showered with bribes and prestigious and lucrative revolving door positions as a result. The real evil work happens when putatively left parties are captured and co-opted. If those left parties can be corrupted and controlled, like the US Dems are, then the people never even have a chance. They are roadkill, the only institutional entity capable of representing their interests is taken from them and instead occupied by their enemies. The cartoon villain billionaires who run the country behind the scenes cannot get that sort of value supporting the Republicans. Only by corrupting the Democratic Party can they guarantee control of the country and ensure there will be no alternative available against them. And, quite naturally, so they have.

Paragraph two:As stated previously, Sanders was the true and correct nominee, but once the party enthroned Clinton, the only way to prevent Trump from becoming president was to vote for Clinton. Sorry, I cannot be budged from that belief.

Yes, that is mathematics. I cannot disagree, although as I made clear earlier, the fact that my vote would and could not affect the outcome of the race is also hard mathematical certainty.

Paragrah three:The first sentence contains what I consider a baseless accusation. The fact that I take exception to Greenwald's essay (it can't really be called an article as in news article) does not automatically put me inside the partisan bubble. I object to it because I don't accept his reasoning and would not accept some of his claims without factual backup. I don't know that I agree that Trump won the nomination so much because people despised the alternatives. I think his adherents liked his sloganeering (and racism and xenophobia and homophobia, etc.) and willingness to be The Leader. It was far more fun for them than actually listening to what any other candidate had to say. Re: the dossier & whether or not it could have been used by the Republicans to disqualify Trump -- this is where Greenwald's Deep State claims start to make more sense, which is not to say I am yet willing to accept them. It now appears obvious that Comey used his position to inject enough doubt into Clinton's already shaky voter base for her to lose the election. The dossier's charge of Trump conspiring with the Kremlin, even as rumor, might have been enough to make him lose the election, were it aired before November. The FBI was happy to groundlessly reopen the Clinton email question, yet sat on the dossier. (For that matter, wasn't the dossier automatically a matter for the CIA?)

I don't understand your skepticism of Greenwald's piece. He is, in my opinion, the absolute best journalist today working his particular beat, and I've never once seen him get a story significantly wrong over his long history in the business. His credibility is far greater than any of the Intelligence Community (IC) spooks or politicians who contradict him. He has, in fact, been persecuted and hounded by the same IC he reports on, and finally forced into exile in Brazil just to continue reporting his truth. There is no higher recommendation in his field of journalism than that. If you tell unflinching truth in that field, the IC will come down on you hard, something no gutless NYT or WaPo stenographer, working the same beat post-Daniel Ellsberg, ever need worry about.

Paragraph four:We don't know that the charges are all true or false. As for firing blanks, the publication of the document has muddied the waters, since the public can't know how much has been investigated. Most of anything being fired seems to be from the media at this point. Should there be a do-over of the entire election. Yeah, maybe so.

So far, no hard, irrefutable corroborating evidence I am aware of has been put forth bolstering any of the claims originating from the IC made against Trump intending to take him down or delegitimize his Presidency. My assumption is that if such hard evidence existed, it would be put before the press and the public for scrutiny. I'm frankly concerned that the IC is spreading false rumors and unfounded allegations in an attempt to essentially foment a coup d'état because Trump isn't someone they feel they can manage and control. And there is *so much* material to attack and undermine Trump with whose veracity isn't in question. His racist dog whistling, his shocking misogyny, his unhinged birtherism, his explicit xenophobia, the hits just keep coming. We could go on and on.

Reply #170: This is where you & I may never see eye to eye, Fumobici. Whereas I agree wholeheartedly with the goals you cite, I remain mystified as to why you don't think that four years of status-quo would not be better than four years of aggressively retrograde "leadership".

You've obviously totally misunderstood me, which is no doubt my own fault. I have *never* said that we will be better served by four years (let's hope it's only four!) under Trump than we would have under Clinton. Clinton was, as the brand requires, a lesser evil. I will, however take whatever meager upsides accrue from Trump's unfortunate election though, and among those I celebrate the hopefully permanent removal of the corrupt Clinton dynasty from its place of power within the DP, the public unmasking of the corruption of the Party as it desperately sought to prevent Sanders from taking control of the Party away from it's rotten core, a far less belligerent foreign policy towards Russia and its massive nuclear stockpile, and now the possibility of the IC, whom I place near the center of gravity of evil within the US state, being taken down a notch or two.

So, let me repeat here so you don't misunderstand: yes, a Clinton presidency would have been a significantly lesser evil overall than having Trump as president. But it still would have been a very bad thing to have happened, and far from being what we deserve and require. But I also believe that no significant good can occur as long as the Democratic Party is under the control of the oligarchs and billionaires that currently have it in their pocket. Voting for the current corrupt Democratic Party will only slow the rate things becoming ever worse for the average American. The country requires that the corruption and evil be significantly cleansed from the party before we can ever look forward to any sort of meaningful progress at all on the crucial economic issues where the oligarchs dig in their heels.

It seems obvious to me that our differences are in reality pretty minor compared to our commonalities. We would, I'm quite sure, find ourselves agreeing on 90%+ of everything political if we sat down and discussed it in a friendly manner. I think a lot of what looks like disagreement here between us is simply misunderstanding due to the limitations of trying to communicate via keyboards from thousands of miles distance.

Post by fumobici on Jan 15, 2017 14:49:24 GMT

Well, one idea that I have always supported is the fusion of France and Germany, an idea that was originally put forward by Konrad Adenauer in March 1950 with a common parliament and nationality. Charles de Gaulle was one of the only French politicians in favour of the idea at the time, but he was not in power then. While we ended up with the Treaty of Rome in 1957 which laid the foundation for the European Union, nationalism had already taken over by then which is why progress has been so slow. The leaders just emerging from WW2 were much more daring but by 1957 all of the reasons that made this a good idea were already being forgotten or ignored.

You will probably find it odd, since it is never in the international news, that this idea of fusion has not gone away in the two countries and there was a new surge of interest after the Brexit vote. The two countries already consider themselves to be each other's strongest ally, and there are quite a few other elements of convergence:

13 French regions and 16 German LänderA unified geographic entity that has been interconnected for a long timeBonn, which would be the federal capital, equidistant from Paris and Berlin and which still possesses all of the governmental infrastructure from before German reunificationA common currencyCompletely convergent economic interests in the 4th and 6th world economiesCompletely convergent foreign policyIdentical ecological concernsSame standard of livingEquivalent health and social servicesCenturies old cooperation in culture, the arts, universities, science and more recently in the military field

A lot of the new generation of Europe has totally abandoned nationalism and completely embrances other cultures. But no, I don't think this fusion will occur in my lifetime. The existence of the European Union is both a consolation and a handicap, because most people will say that a total fusion is no longer necessary. I disagree.

I would also like to see the "floodgates" of immigration opened. It seems obvious to me that there is so much pressure on immigration mostly because the borders are not permeable. Up until the 1970's, just about anybody could settle in France and nobody considered it to be a problem. A lot of people would later return to their home countries and others would become French. It worked just fine until the same psychosis set in just about everywhere in the world: "Immigrants are lazy, they suck up all of the social services and they increase the crime rate." No matter how many times this is disproven, people still don't believe the results of studies.

So no, I don't think that things will go back to what I consider "normal" in my lifetime.

So those are two of my "impossible" wishes, fumobici. But they have nothing to do with the United States of President Trump.

I'm intrigued and taken aback by the idea of a German-French confederation. I don't think I've ever heard such a thing proposed before. Would any other countries be invited to join?

I've also toyed with the idea of opening borders--if trade in goods and services are free to cross those borders, why not labor as well? But I think the opening would have to be negotiated bilaterally as two-way for the idea to be fair. That is, that any nation we agreed to open borders with and fully welcome immigrants from must likewise open their own borders to anyone wishing to go in the opposite direction and to give them full rights as residents or citizens in turn. I bet a lot of Europeans would move South if all institutional barriers to doing so were removed and they could enjoy all the rights and privileges of citizenship in their new homes. No passports, no visas, no work permits, no residency permissions, no restrictions on buying or owning properties or businesses, full voting and political rights. It might be nice. I do doubt either side's governments would welcome the disruption that would inevitably ensue however.